X-ray proof underwear, new defense in war with TSA scanners

Washington
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Passengers traveling by air, on the busiest travel day in the United States, who are worried about the Transportation Security Administration security scanners filming their privates now have a way out: anti-radiation underwear.

The underwear, sold by Colorado company Rocky Flats Gear, feature a unique fig leaf patterns over the 'sensitive area', with the leaves made out of material promising to "block natural and man-made radiation."

Rocky Flats Gear is offering this revolutionary flexible, attractive, lightweight, lead free, radiation shielding garments for individuals, who want to make sure the TSA security personnel are unable to see their 'junk' on what is being referred to as porn-like pictures of the human anatomy and have resulted in at least one congressman stepping up to say "enough is enough" and then introducing a bill to put a stop to the madness.

The company stresses their emphasis is on protecting the traveling public, airline, medical, and security professionals from radiation generated by security and medical imaging equipment. The company website says the "novel products can protect tissues from a broadband of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation generated by imaging equipment and natural sources. " and they added that the the underclothes are attractive, durable, affordable, fun, and comfortable to wear

"They would stop harmful rays of any kind, but more to the point, the technology insures privacy of medical and body scanner images," the company website boasts.

The Transportation Security Administration has come under growing pressure over new scanners that show the naked contours of passengers. Passengers refusing to submit to the scan face a detailed manual search, likened by opponents to sexual groping.

A man filmed confronting airport staff in mid-November and telling an official to keep his hands off "my junk" -- slang for genitals -- has become a YouTube folk hero, reported the New York Daily News.

NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' got in on the good-natured fun over the weekend and took a swipe at the TSA's airport pat-down security controversy in the U.S., likening the TSA employees to characters in a sex worker commercial, as reported in Digital Journal.

TSA chief John Pistole insists that there is no danger from radiation in the scans and that intensive searches are necessary to prevent increasingly imaginative bombers from boarding planes.

"We want to work with industry to make sure we have the safest machines available. That is the bottom line. They are safe for everyday use," he told MSNBC television.

Pistole has not responded to the new anti-radiation underwear but continues to maintain the position that those who refuse the scanner are subject to the pat-down search which includes the crotch area and chest.

This policy is expected to include wearers of radiation shielding undies.

The TSA may be denied the pleasure of looking at your privates on x-ray, if you opt to wear the new garments, but that will not stop them from being able to - grope-at-will - all travelers who's privates they are unable to inspect in any other way.

While today's holiday travelers may have to endure intimate pat-downs and scanners that create revealing body images, there's one humiliation they won't have to face, at least not yet: body cavity searches.

"We're not going to be in the business of doing body cavities," said Pistole, reports AOL news. "That's not where we are."

"We are taking some risk by not doing any screening [of body cavities], but it is the balance of what is the appropriate level of risk versus screening," he said.